


Chemical Delirium

by S0lstice



Series: Whumptober 2019 [9]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alt Prompt: Fever, Angst, Brief Mention of Suicide, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Irondad, Medical Inaccuracies, Needles, Panic Attacks, Poisoning, Precious Peter Parker, Prompt: Delirium, Prompt: Pinned Down, Restraints, Sick Peter Parker, Sickfic, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Whumptober 2019, spiderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:54:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22779028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/S0lstice/pseuds/S0lstice
Summary: “Fri, bring the lights up. Now,” he ordered. The lights rose and Tony’s anxiety rose with it. There were large damp patches over Peter's light blue t-shirt where he had sweat through it and his skin was flushed a dark pink.------Or------Peter arrives late to Tony's lab and begins to exhibit some alarming symptoms.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Whumptober 2019 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1502207
Comments: 91
Kudos: 822





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a two-parter, and I have a good portion of the second part already written so it shouldn't be too far behind this one. 
> 
> (Also, there's a tiny easter egg in here for some of the Discorders) ;)

Peter walked into Tony’s lab forty-five minutes late, shivering in just a hooded sweatshirt and jeans, backpack slung over one shoulder. The shoulders of his sweatshirt were damp, as was the hood pulled up over his unkempt and wind-blown hair. 

He gave Tony a chagrined smile when their eyes met and jogged the last few steps to him, sneakers making a squishing noise against the floor with each step. “I’m sorry I’m late, Mr. Stark! I got locked out of the apartment after school and May’s not going to be home till really late, so I had to walk to Ned’s house to borrow his key, but I forgot that their family was away for the weekend. So I went back to the apartment but it was snowing pretty hard by then so by the time I got back, Happy had been waiting for a while. He wasn't happy about it.”

He dropped his backpack to the floor, pulled up a stool next to Tony, and stared at him expectantly. Tony gave his appearance a pointed once over. 

“Why are you all wet, didn’t you have a coat? Or a scarf? Gloves? Anything?”

Peter dropped his eyes and began to run his fingers along the edge of the workbench. “Oh, well uh. Yeah, I have a coat and a scarf. And gloves, I have all those things.”

“Why aren’t they on you?”

“They’re in my locker at school.”

Tony waited a few seconds, tapping his pen idly against the tabletop, before releasing a sigh. “C’mon, kid, I’m gonna need an explanation. Kids at your school are supposed to be smart.”

Peter shifted in his seat. “The lock got a little bent, so I can’t open it.”

“How’d it get bent?”

“It was like that when I got out of 6th period,” he responded cryptically, but Tony knew what that meant. Another kid probably did it on purpose.

“I could’ve unbent it by hand, obviously, but I would’ve had to wait for everyone to leave and I didn’t want to miss the bus.” Peter stopped fidgeting and looked at him straight on again. His cheeks and nose were pink, a few curls hanging damp on his forehead. 

“Alright, well.” Tony considered him a moment longer before tipping his head toward the door. “Go change. I’m getting cold just looking at you. You remember where to go?”

Peter nodded with a soft, grateful smile and squished his way back out.

He returned looking much warmer in a dry gray sweatsuit and socks. He was still shivering as they began talking about Peter’s upcoming science project, but Tony wasn’t concerned. He had, after all, apparently just spent a fair amount of time trudging through the snow in just a sweatshirt. 

He _was_ concerned, however, when they were well into their second hour and he looked over to find his intern _still_ shivering, with his shoulders hunched forward, one hand holding his hood gathered snugly around his neck and the other buried deep in the front pocket of his sweatshirt. 

Tony wandered closer. Peter had some sketches and half-finished diagrams drawn out on the screen before him but he was just gazing blankly at them, stylus laying abandoned to one side. 

“How’s the project coming, kiddo?” Tony inquired casually, dropping a hand on his shoulder. Peter jumped slightly before glancing up. His eyes looked a little bleary and his cheeks had retained their rosy hue. 

“I dunno,” the teenager answered with a world-weary sigh. He looked back to his messy notes. “I keep getting stuck on simple things. My brain isn’t working.” A visible tremor rattled his limbs and he hunched in a little further. 

Tony turned him on his stool and put the back of his hand against Peter’s forehead. “You getting sick, Parker? You know there’s no sneezing in the lab.”

Peter chuckled but then shook his head. “I can’t get sick.”

“Well yeah, I can’t either. I’ve got a conference coming up.”

“No, I mean I literally can’t get sick. Or at least I haven’t since I became all spidery. And I used to get sick all the time.”

Tony dropped his hand, not even sure if Peter had felt warm or not. Of course he _had_ , but everyone had a warm forehead. He put his hand to his own forehead for a moment before testing Peter’s again. He thought it might feel warmer. 

Peter just watched him with barely contained amusement. 

Tony sniffed and crossed his arms. “I have thicker sweatshirts if you’re still cold.”

Peter uncurled a little bit and took his hands out of his pocket. “No, no, I’m fine. I mean I’ve been feeling a little off all day, but I think I’m just overtired or something.”

Tony hummed thoughtfully. They had only been at it for a couple hours, but Peter really did look exhausted and clearly wasn’t getting a whole lot of work done. Reaching a decision, he clapped once, unintentionally startling Peter again. “Well! I could use a break. You hungry?”

Peter paused to consider the question, which Tony found more concerning than all of his other symptoms combined. 

“Um. Sure, yeah, I could eat.”

Half an hour later they sat on stools at the compound’s kitchen island, boxes of pizza and containers of salad laid out before them. He had ordered the salad mostly for appearances but Peter took some and picked away at it, no doubt worried that he’d come across as rude if he didn’t eat what was presented to him. 

The steel gray sky darkened outside as the sun dipped below the horizon and the snow continued to build. They chatted and bantered over the evening news while they ate, but Peter was very clearly getting worse. By the time he pushed his food away his shoulders were sagging and his smiles seemed tired and forced. 

Tony stood and brushed stray crumbs from his hands, giving Peter a calculating eye before checking his forehead again. It was noticeably too warm this time and there was a sheen of sweat gathering along the teenager’s hairline. “Congratulations, super-kid, I think you’re sick for the first time since you became all spidery.”

There were a few seconds of silence in which Peter narrowed his eyes at him, but then he deflated. “I dunno, I guess. It’s nothing bad though, honest. Just... chills. Hot and cold, and... really achy. And tired.” There was a subtle shine under his nostrils and he quickly pulled the cuff of his sweatshirt over his hand and held it against his nose. "And maybe a runny nose."

Tony let out a long breath, which Peter must have taken as a decision in and of itself, because his eyebrows rose so high Tony thought they might disappear into his hair. “I don’t need to go home though, Mr. Stark!”

“I wasn’t going to send you home,” Tony assured, stacking the pizza boxes to take to the counter. Peter followed close behind him. “The snow’s still coming down pretty heavily, anyway. How would it make me look if I kicked a sick kid out into a snowstorm?”

He heard a relieved sigh behind him and his heart warmed at the thought that Peter wanted to stay there with him even when he wasn’t feeling well. 

“Thanks, Mr. Star-“

He spun and held a finger up. “One condition though.” Peter froze, clutching the leftover salad to his chest. “We are taking the appropriate steps and doing the things you’re supposed to do when someone is sick. No more workshop tonight, we’re just going to watch a movie or something and you're going to... eat soup and... cough drops.” He finished with a wave of his hand. 

“But we just ate, and I’m not coughing,” Peter pointed out. Tony caught a hint of a smile as the teenager moved around him to put the salad in the refrigerator. “You know if you took better care of yourself when you got sick, you’d probably have a better idea of what to do.”

“Hey. You don’t know what I do when I’m sick. I take very good care of myself, I go on a strict regimen of coffee and NyQuil. Not my fault that it doesn’t work for everyone.”

Peter just snickered. 

“I don’t need to take this from you,” Tony grumbled, and gently pushed him toward the couch in the common room. “Just go sit and pick out something to watch, I’ll be back.” Just before leaving the room he called back, “Nothing too nerdy, I don’t feel that sorry for you just yet.”

A minute or so later he returned to what appeared to be a documentary on deep sea exploration. 

“Is this okay?” Peter asked as Tony deposited what he had gathered onto the coffee table. “Look at this weird squid.”

“Nice. Looks like one of my old math teachers,” Tony said with a glance at the screen where a bumpy translucent pink creature was floating along. He plopped a thermometer in Peter’s lap. “Use that, let’s see what your temperature actually is.”

Peter ran his eyes over the supplies: a few bottles of chilled water and Gatorade, a box of tissues, cold and flu medicine, and ibuprofen. “You really didn’t have to get all this stuff, Mr. Stark. I’ll probably be fine in the morning.”

“I told you we’re taking the appropriate steps. Like taking your temperature.”

Peter grabbed the cold and flu medicine and began reading the box. “I wonder if this will even work with my metabolism? Pain medication sometimes works for a little while but I try not to take it if I can help it because I have to take a lot of it and even then it only works sometimes. We don’t even know if what I have is a cold, anyway.”

“Take your temperature.”

“My throat doesn’t hurt and I'm not coughing. Everything else is kind of achy though. My head hurts. And I'm so tired.” He finally went quiet when he popped the thermometer into his mouth and Tony settled onto the couch next to him to watch the documentary.

A minute later the thermometer beeped and Peter took it out to look. 

“Hey, 100.7! That’s what I got on my chemistry test yesterday! I mean I didn’t get the point seven because Mr. Branco doesn’t get that specific, but still... I got a one hundred. That’s so cool, what are the odds?”

“Well, you’re a smart kid who has a fever so the odds are actually pretty good. A hundred’s not awful, but take some ibuprofen, it should help bring it down even if it only works a little. And drink the Gatorade.”

Over the next hour or so, Peter took his sweatshirt off and put it back on at least five times. He started sneezing and blowing his nose and even nodded off occasionally. Eventually the documentary moved on from deep sea exploration to whales and shoreline creatures and after that it didn’t take long for Tony’s eyelids to begin to droop as well. The narrator’s voice was monotonous but somehow soothing and he tipped his head back and drifted off to the sound of rushing waves and whale songs. 

He slept longer than intended and was disoriented for a few seconds upon waking up. Friday had dimmed the lights significantly and the documentary was long gone, replaced by some sitcom with a clearly over-used, prerecorded laugh track. 

He yawned and rubbed at the crick in his neck, looking to Peter who was laying down next to him with his head on the arm of the couch. His eyes were closed and his face looked a little sweaty in the glow of the television. Tony stood, stretching his arms a bit, and then leaned down to feel the boy’s forehead. 

He immediately sucked in a breath at the level of heat radiating from Peter's skin. He slid his hand to the back of his neck, partially hoping it had just been his imagination, but if anything his neck was even hotter. And the kid wasn't just sweaty, he was _wet_. 

“Fri, bring the lights up. Now,” he ordered. The lights rose and Tony’s anxiety rose with it. There were large damp patches over Peter's light blue t-shirt where he had sweat through it and his skin was flushed a dark pink. 

“Jesus. Peter, wake up.” He patted the boy’s shoulder. “Wake up, bud. Come on.”

Peter didn’t respond so Tony shook him a little more forcefully and then rolled him onto his back. His arms flopped limply and his head lolled as he was moved. 

“Kid. Wake up. Let’s go.” He gave Peter’s cheeks a couple of light smacks. “Friday, how long has it been since I fell asleep?”

“It’s ten thirty-five, boss. You’ve been asleep for about an hour and a half.”

“Okay, uh. Okay. You can take someone’s temperature under their arm, right?”

“Yes. Axillary temperatures are not as accurate as oral, but is a good option if he’s not conscious.”

Tony held Peter's arm tightly against his side and slipped the thermometer in, sitting on the coffee table next to him. “Remind me to sterilize this later, Fri. Actually remind me to throw it out, I’ll get a new one.”

He watched his intern’s face while he waited. His eyes were moving slightly under his eyelids and he was breathing heavily, sweat-dampened hair clumping together at the ends. 

“What the hell, kid,” Tony murmured. The sitcom continued playing in the background, filling the silence of the common room with a laughter so inappropriate to the situation that it began to make Tony’s hackles raise in annoyance. 

The thermometer beeped and he pulled it out.

“Wow, okay. 102.4, that’s... how the hell did it spike so fast?”

“Actually, boss, axillary temperatures generally measure one degree below the more accurate oral temperature.”

Tony’s mind blanked briefly as he stared at the numbers. “You’re saying his temperature is actually 103.4?”

“Roughly, yes.”

He dropped the thermometer back to the coffee table and took a few steps toward the kitchen, but then spun back around when he heard a sleepy sigh. The tide of anxiety in his chest receded somewhat when he saw Peter stirring.

"Oh hey, Mr. Stark..." Peter blinked blearily at him a few times before pushing his fingers into his eyes. "I just had a dream that you were, like... in my armpit."

"Well. Kinda, I had to take your temp. You're way overheating, bud, and you weren't waking up. I'm gonna-"

"Ms. Potts was there too."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "In your armpit?"

Peter nodded slowly, still rubbing at his eyes. "You were both tiny. You kept pushing her out and telling her to save herself." He dropped his hands and stared at Tony for a moment, then squinted. "You don't look right."

" _I_ don't look right? You're the one who looks like he walked fully clothed out of the ocean. With a bad sunburn."

Suddenly Peter's face turned serious and he pushed himself up onto his elbows. "Something is wrong. Something's wrong, Mr. Stark, I have to go." 

Tony darted forward with a curse as Peter awkwardly rolled himself off the couch and onto his hands and knees on the carpet.

"Stop- Peter, stop, lay down." Tony grabbed his arms and tried to get him back on the couch but even sick and feverish, Peter was too strong for him. The teenager staggered to his feet and held onto Tony's shirt for support, but then just cast his gaze about the room. 

"I- I don't know where to go," he stammered, looking back to Tony for help. "Something's wrong. I don't know where to go."

A wave of unexpected affection bloomed in Tony's heart at the child-like expression on his intern's face, but it was dampened by how equally worrisome the behavior was. The boy's eyes were unnaturally glassy and there was something else unusual about them that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

"It's okay, kid, everything is fine-" Tony started, but Peter's gaze just continued to wander the room uncertainly. 

"Hey. Look at me." He took the boy's sweaty face between his hands to regain his attention and waited for Peter's roaming eyes to land back on him. "You're gonna be okay. Alright? I promise. You're a little bit more sick than we thought, but we're going to fix that. You don't have to go anywhere - I would actually prefer it if you didn't." 

Peter slowly nodded, some of the lost look in his eyes fading. 

"So here's what we're gonna do," he continued, relieved when Peter let himself be guided back down to the couch, holding onto Tony's shirt the entire way. When he was seated, Tony unpacked the cold and flu medication. "I'm going to get you some ice packs, and you're going to sit here and start drinking water. And take these." 

Peter stared at the pills in his palm. "I'm not sick."

"Jesus _Christ_ , Peter. Just take them. However much you usually need to for it to work."

He heard the teenager gulping down water as he moved quickly to the kitchen. He knew Helen Cho was at the compound that weekend and would be available if needed, but didn't want to call her if he could help it. 103.4 was bad, but it wasn't life threatening and may easily come back down on its own. Really, Peter had only taken a couple ibuprofen, and that was hours ago.

He grabbed a few dish towels along with the ice packs and returned to find Peter sitting against the arm of the couch, watching the sitcom and coughing into his arm. He'd pulled the cuffs of his sweatpants up above his knees and taken his socks off. 

"Did you take the meds?" Tony handed him one of the towels, and Peter nodded as he shakily dabbed the sweat from his face.

"Mm." He took an ice pack and pressed it to his forehead, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. "Pie, though, Mr. Stark," he mumbled.

Tony sat back down next to him and couldn't help a small chuckle. "Yeah, not gonna happen, bud. You're too sick for pie."

"No. Anagram," Peter said lazily, opening his eyes halfway. He pointed at the coffee table. "Take out the zero."

Tony couldn't decide whether Peter's incoherence was endearing or alarming. 

"Pie. Mr. Stark," Peter continued, brow furrowing as though Tony was the one displaying concerning behavior. "The temperature, 103.4."

"103.4... oh, you mean _pi?_ 3.14?"

One corner of Peter's mouth quirked upward. "Math," he said, shooting Tony a finger gun. 

Tony let out a long sigh. "That's... okay, yes. Math. Just lie down, put this other ice pack under your neck."

He handed Peter the ice pack and a throw pillow, expecting him to lie back down on the arm of the couch, but instead the boy settled the pillow on Tony's legs and lay his head on his lap. For a few seconds Tony was motionless, not quite sure where to look or what to do. He supposed it wasn't entirely out of place. It was probably a habit the kid had with his aunt back when he used to get sick more often. Granted, despite the fact that he and Peter had been growing closer lately, he knew that if he was in his right mind, he would likely be far too nervous to do the same thing with Tony.

But, as Peter struggled and failed to hold both ice packs at the same time and still see the tv, Tony found he didn't mind. He took one of the ice packs and held it against the back of Peter's neck for him. 

The sitcom droned on. Peter continued coughing and dabbing at his nose with tissues, and Tony kept an eagle eye on his watch, waiting and hoping for the medication to start taking effect. Twenty minutes passed and Peter started shaking again. The ice packs lost their chill and became room temperature, and when Tony put a hand on the side of Peter's neck, he found it just as hot and sweaty as before. 

Peter rolled onto his back. "Alpacas and llamas are different," he said softly, brow furrowed in thought.

Tony glanced at the screen just to be sure the show hadn't suddenly changed to a national geographic special. "What made you think of that?"

"There's a guy I went to school with... looked like a llama. S'name was Larry.." he trailed off, blinking slowly before meeting Tony's eyes. "I can't see the tv."

The muted glow of the television shifted colors against the side of Peter's face and Tony's eyes widened when he saw a shining trail of wetness on his temple that was definitely not sweat.

"Pete, are you crying?"

Peter blinked a few times and then touched the edge of his eyes. "I don't think so."

"Are you sure?" The worry that had been simmering in Tony's gut flared when he wiped the sweat from around the teenager's eyes and almost immediately a tear slipped out and trailed down his temple again.

"I'm not crying," Peter reiterated as another tremor rippled through his body. Other than his near-delirious state, he didn't seem particularly upset. His eyes weren't red or puffy, just bleary, slightly unfocused, and their usual dark brown. Very brown. Almost _entirely_ brown, Tony realized with a sinking feeling. Peter started to turn away but Tony grabbed his chin and turned his face back to him. It hit him then, what had seemed so off about them earlier. His pupils were almost the size of pinpricks.

Individual little pieces of information that had been hovering in the back of his mind slowly began to coalesce. Peter said he had been feeling off all day, not just after he'd come in from the snow. No medications were working. His nose was running but he wasn't congested. His eyes were leaking tears but he wasn't crying. His pupils were too narrow. He said that Tony didn't look right and now he couldn't see the tv.

Tony stiffened. "Peter, did anything weird happen to you this morning? Or last night? Did you go on patrol last night?"

Peter nodded lethargically. "I Spider-Manned last night."

"What happened, did something happen?"

Peter stared at him blankly for a few seconds, but then his whole body tensed and his eyes went round.

"Something's wrong," he murmured again, and Tony's heart dropped. "I have to go somewhere. I can't stay here." 

He began to struggle up into a sitting position and Tony let him, but kept a hold of his arm. "Friday, call Helen, ask her to meet us at the Medbay. Tell her it's an emergency."

"It's an emergency, Mr. Stark," Peter echoed, scrambling to get off the couch. "I have to go, something is wrong."

 _Something is definitely wrong,_ Tony thought as he wrangled Peter to his feet. The teenager immediately tried to get away but Tony kept a tight grip on his upper arm, worried that he would hurt himself or worse, actually try to leave the compound.

"Kid, you're doing a great cat-in-the-bathtub impression, but you need to calm down." Tony's voice came out tight and tremulous despite his attempts to keep it even. Peter either didn't hear him or ignored him and continued to try to wriggle out, but it was heartbreakingly obvious that he was now significantly weaker than Tony.

"Something is wrong!" Peter objected, and almost pulled free when Tony's hands slipped on the sweat of his arms, but he snatched him by the wrist and brought him to a halt.

"Mr. Stark, please!" Peter turned and looked at him with large feverish eyes, damp hair curling over his forehead. Tears continued to trickle down over his flushed cheeks. "I don't know where to go!"

Just hours ago, this same boy had been sharing ideas for his upcoming science project and bantering with him over pizza. 

The tv filled the room with prerecorded laughter again and Tony's grip on Peter's wrist tightened.

"We're gonna go to the Medbay, Pete, okay? Whatever's wrong, the doc is gonna help fix it. She's nice, I promise. She might even give you a lollipop." He tried to gently draw the teenager closer to him, but Peter continued to resist.

"What if it's not safe there? I don't know where to go, I can't-" he went silent and an odd look came over his face before he reared back and released the most powerful sneeze Tony had ever witnessed. He wobbled dizzily in the aftershocks and Tony took advantage, pulling Peter's arm over his shoulders and wrapping his other arm around the teenager's waist.

"Okay kiddo, here we go," he murmured, pulling Peter toward the hallway. "I am officially in way over my head." 

The sneeze seemed to have either tired him out too much to fight back, or simply knocked whatever thought was upsetting him right out of his head, because he just sagged against Tony and allowed himself be led to the elevator. 

"Did you fight anyone last night?" Tony tried again as he dragged his intern inside and punched the button for the Medbay. 

"Yeah, I fought people," Peter responded. He was like a furnace against Tony's side. "I'm Spider-Man."

"What happened? Who were they?" 

He saw the boy's nose scrunch up in the reflection of the elevator doors. "They smelled, and it was... they were yellow. They were wearing these... things." He gestured up and down his own body. "Suits."

"What kind of suits?"

A deep shudder rattled through Peter's body and one of his legs buckled, but he slapped a hand against the wall before they listed too far to the side.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "Can't really... do stuff. Sorry, Mr. Stark. 'm okay."

He started to lean away in a ridiculous attempt to stand on his own.

"Stop."

"Okay."

His knee buckled again and, hiding his ever-rising alarm behind a huff of exasperation, Tony let go of the arm over his shoulder and hefted Peter up into a bridal carry instead. He expected the boy to put up some sort of protest, but all he received was a quiet, _'whoa.'_

When he exited the elevator into the medical wing, a part of him hoped he would find Dr. Cho already waiting for them, but the rest of him knew how unrealistic that hope was. She could have easily been in bed when she got the call. He took Peter into the nearest room, Friday flicking the lights on as he entered, and laid him down on the examination table. 

The wait for Helen couldn't have been more than two or three minutes, but Peter was deteriorating fast. His coughs took on a heavy, wet quality, and he seemed to drift in and out of consciousness, muscles twitching randomly in what started to look less like fever chills and more like minor convulsions. His nose and eyes continued to leak.

Tony had rarely ever felt as helpless and out of his element. All he knew to do was keep a cold, wet paper towel on Peter's forehead, put a box of tissues next to him, quietly panic, and wait. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently there will be more chapters, though I'm not sure how many. Might be one more, might be two? This one got way more intense than I thought it would. Checks the tags, I added a couple more!

There was a lava flow in Peter's chest. Bubbling up and outward like a slow eruption to fill his limbs. The only thing keeping it in was his skin, and there was a limit as to how much he could hold inside him, surely there was. But the lava kept flowing, packing itself into his head and his arms and his legs when there was already too much there. 

Then there were the earthquakes. His body would start to shake like it was trying to go in every direction at once. He'd only realize it had subsided when the next earthquake began. 

He had too much nature in him and it wasn't following the rules, because there was water coating his skin as well. It should be evaporating, steaming, boiling. When water comes into contact with lava, it should form... well, maybe his skin wasn't skin at all, then. Maybe it was obsidian. More water came from his eyes. From his nose. It clogged his lungs and made him cough, and the coughing was painful, putting more pressure on his head than his skull should be able to handle. It was just a matter of time before it cracked.

He was glad that Tony was with him. And he was glad that Tony seemed just as concerned about these natural disasters as he was. Although he kept putting something wet on Peter's forehead, and while it would briefly feel good, Tony should know that all it was going to do was form more obsidian.

"Obsidian, Mr. Stark," he mumbled, and Tony looked down at him.

"What?"

"When lava touches water."

There seemed to be a permanent crease in Tony's forehead and it only deepened at Peter's words. Peter just furrowed his brow back at him. Was Tony pretending to not know?

"Y'know, obsidian?" 

It occurred to him that Tony might actually be scared of natural disasters, because there was a fear in his eyes that was usually reserved for when Peter got in over his head during a fight, or when he got really hurt. It made him feel safe, knowing that Tony Stark wanted to protect him. 

"It's okay, Mr. Stark," he said quietly, and tried to pat the man's hand. He didn't quite make it, mostly just flopping his arm, but that was probably for the best. He didn't want to get any lava on him. "Don't worry about the disasters. It's gonna be okay."

"Goddamn it, kid." Tony rubbed a hand over his eyes and looked away. Maybe Peter shouldn't talk; everything he said just seemed to make his mentor worry even more.

A new, female voice entered the room and Peter wasn't sure he liked it at first, because Tony immediately left his side. They spoke to each other but Peter didn't pay much attention because another earthquake was starting. He tried to hold still, as he usually did. It wasn't actually that bad of an earthquake, but Tony and the woman might have disagreed because their voices changed tone, the woman's becoming sharp and commanding. 

For a few seconds he couldn't see anyone, but then the woman appeared next to him.

"Hi, Peter," she said, giving him a warm smile. "I'm Dr. Cho, I'm going to help fix you up tonight, okay? You can call me Helen if you'd like."

That's right, Tony told him that there would be a doctor. She didn't look like a doctor. She didn't have a white coat, just an old sweatshirt with rolled up sleeves and a haphazard ponytail. But if Tony said she was a doctor, then she was a doctor. Maybe she specialized in natural disasters.

"Hi," he replied. The earthquake was subsiding, so he held a hand out to her. "I'm Peter."

Her smile widened and she stopped whatever she had been doing to briefly shake his hand. "Hi, Peter."

He heard the _snick snick snick_ of scissors and glanced down to see that Tony was cutting through his shirt and pulling it away from his body. It was a shame, that had been a comfortable shirt. But he figured it was just as well. He was surprised it hadn't burned away already.

He stared at the ceiling. It was a soft white, almost cream, and he knew it had tiles... he knew he had been in this room before and had looked at those same tiles before. At least it was supposed to have tiles. He couldn't see any right now, even when he squinted. 

Was he not actually in that room? The ceiling looked foggy the more he studied it. Blurry. Like clouds. Clouds were always peaceful. He began to close his eyes, but then suddenly the sun broke out from behind the clouds, too bright, too fast, too close. Very quickly he realized it couldn't be the sun after all, because it had a blue hue to it and it traveled from one eye to the other. 

"Do you see how small they are?" Tony said nearby. "They're too small, right? I think they're too small."

"They are," Helen said more calmly, leaning away from Peter and rolling a machine toward him. "Has he been exposed to anything harmful over the last twenty four hours that you know of?"

"Well, he patrolled last night, and said he got into some sort of - he said there were guys in yellow suits that he was fighting?" Tony put a hand on Peter's shoulder and looked down at him urgently. "Pete, what were you saying before, about the guys in yellow suits? What does that mean?"

...Did Tony just give away his identity as Spider-Man to this woman? 

"You shouldn't say that, Mr. Stark, you didn't ask me," Peter replied, lowering his eyebrows. 

Tony dropped his head. "Peter, _please. Please,_ concentrate on last night, okay? Remember there were guys in yellow suits?"

There were definitely guys in yellow suits. They were easy. Not too many of them, either. He had still been worried, though. They were different, more dangerous than he was used to dealing with. Why were they more dangerous? What had they been doing?

"The suits were..." he started slowly, searching the mismatched pieces of his memory for the right information. "They were Breaking Bad."

Tony kept staring at him, that permanent crease in his forehead deepening again. "How were they breaking bad?"

"They were in Breaking Bad suits."

His mentor's expression opened up at that, and he glanced at Helen before scooting closer to him. "Like hazmat suits? That kind of thing? Did they have gas masks?"

Peter nodded and looked at the woman too. She was wiping his torso down with a towel and attaching little sticky wires over his chest. A bit of water caught in his airway and he coughed a few times, wincing when it sent a spike of pain through his already aching head. 

"Was it a drug den? Meth?" 

Now the woman was hooking up an IV bag next to him. 

"Peter."

A large hand gripped his forearm and he rolled his head back to Tony. "Yeah?"

"Were they cooking meth, like in Breaking Bad?"

Such a good show. Good writing. He had a favorite line, one he and Ned quoted to each other all the time... what was it? 'I am the one who knocks'? No...

"Say my name!" He exclaimed.

Helen glanced down in concern. "Are you having trouble recalling your name?"

Tony released a frustrated groan and ran a hand over his forehead. "No, he's just... it's from the show, just- is this something that could be caused by drugs?"

Peter glanced away from him guiltily, trying to remember what it was his mentor had asked him before. Breaking Bad...?

"'Drugs' is too vague a term, Tony," the woman replied wryly. "But these symptoms aren't consistent with methamphetamines or any other street drug that I'm aware of."

No, it hadn't been meth.

"Oh." An image raised itself to the forefront of his mind and he latched onto it. "Mr. Stark. I remember what they were doing."

Tony zeroed in on him again. "What? What were they doing?"

"They were um... they were passing gas."

Tony dropped Peter's hand, the hand Peter hadn't even known he was holding, and stood up with a roll of his eyes. "Come on, Peter!"

He thought Tony wanted to know what happened. That had happened, he knew it did. He remembered it, he could see it. 

Maybe he wasn't using the right words.

"They were... they had gas."

Tony had walked a few feet away and turned halfway back to Peter, one hand rubbing over his mouth. He didn't believe him. 

A burning, tingling sensation bloomed high up in Peter's nose and the water trickling from his eyes started coming out a little faster and a little warmer than before. "I'm sorry, I'm trying!" he blurted. Tony dropped the hand from his face in dismay and came back to Peter's side.

"Tony I know you're worried, but he's likely having a very hard time following our conversation," Helen reproached from wherever she was working in the room. "What might sound like gibberish might have some truth in it. His mind is working against him right now."

"I know, I-... I know."

Peter swallowed hard past the lump in his throat and blinked at the water in his eyes. It didn't go away, so instead he tried to remember what it was he said that annoyed Tony.

"Okay. Pete? Kiddo?" Tony took his hand again and patted the back of it when Peter moved his gaze back to him. 

He had been telling him about the guys in yellow suits, and what they were doing. They were handling something dangerous. He closed his eyes to try and focus on the images in his mind.

"The... symbol," he mumbled uncertainly. "Um. Caution. Gas?" He let out a broken huff and looked up at Tony again, wishing he could project the image into the older man's brain. He wiped at his eyes with the palm of his hand. "Um. The bio- bio symbol?"

Tony's eyes darkened. "Biohazard? The biohazard symbol?" 

Peter nodded quickly. "Yes! And... gas. They were passing it."

Tony squeezed Peter's hand. "Like tanks of gas? Were they passing tanks with the biohazard symbol on it to each other when you got there? In hazmat suits?"

Peter nodded again excitedly but had to stop when the lava sloshed in his head. "And, uh. Mr. Stark." He squeezed Tony's hand back to make sure he kept listening. "There was stuff on the floor, too, like. Something spilled. They dropped it. Um." He struggled to pull the words from his brain. "Smelly. And it was brown."

"Gross," Tony murmured under his breath.

Helen leaned over him, fitting a thin tube across his face, under his nose, and behind his ears. "Do you remember what it smelled like, Peter?" she said, then switched on a machine out of view and he felt a gentle, constant puff of cool air in his nostrils.

"It looked watery, and it smelled like... fruit, but like... rotten fruit? Or..." his voice faded, attention turning suddenly to his heartbeat. It had been pulsing quite normally within the bubbling pool of lava in his chest but now he found it pounding, thundering against his ribs like it was trying to break out. An uncomfortable tightness spread over his body and the little hairs on the back of his neck stood upright.

He was in danger. Something was coming. 

He looked at Tony with wide eyes and Tony seemed to know something was wrong too, because he was already shaking his head.

"Peter, no-"

He had to leave. If he stayed here, Tony and the doctor might be in danger too. He looked around the room for entrance points, trying to gauge where the threat might come from. None of it looked right. 

His danger sense could be finicky, he would be the first to admit. But there were times when it was so strong it was painful. Not just a warning to be on the lookout but a compulsion to _move_ before it was too late. And never once had it been wrong.

"Mr. Stark, I have to-"

"Don't say it-"

"-go!" He tried to get up but Tony already had a forearm across his shoulders, pinning him down on the table. "No! Something is wrong, you have to let me leave!" 

"Hold his arm down!" Helen barked and came running back. "He's going to rip out the IV!" 

Tony grabbed his wrist and slapped it back down before he could even lift it all the way. "He keeps doing this!" 

Peter yanked at Tony's arm with his free hand and tried to twist his way off the table, kicking his legs for leverage. He didn't understand a good portion of what was happening to him, but this much was crystal clear: He was in danger right here on this table, and if he didn't get away he was going to die.

Tony's arm left his shoulders only to grab his ankle instead to keep him from rolling off the table. "Kid, stop! You're safe here!"

"No, I'm not!"

"How long do these episodes last, Tony?" Helen was doing her best to hold down his other arm.

"I dunno, a- a couple minutes maybe?" 

She let go of Peter's arm and disappeared, and he immediately tried to pry Tony's hand from his other wrist. The pressure was building within him and without, an overwhelming sense of dread that lodged itself in his chest and lit a fire in every one of his nerve endings. The air around him vibrated like a living thing, warning him, screaming for him to escape while he still could.

He wrenched his arm free, a sharp pain piercing the inside of his elbow as he did so, and lurched for the side of the table. Machines trilled and beeped in alarm, wires ripping free from his chest. He was halfway off the table, bare toes just inches from the ground and escape in sight, when a strong arm hooked around his midsection from behind and dragged him backwards.

 _"No!"_ he screamed, panic flooding his senses and crackling like lightning throughout his body. Tony was shouting and the doctor was rushing to hook up something under the table but Peter was barely aware of either, the need to get away eclipsing all else. He scrambled, reaching for the edge of the table, but Tony's other arm came forward to wrap around him as well and he was pulled back into a tight bear hug. 

Something slipped over one of his ankles and then cinched tight, forcing it down to the table and keeping it there. 

"No, no, no, please!" He yanked his other leg up close to his body when the doctor reached for it. "I can't stay here, I'm going to die!"

 _"Peter!"_ The arms locked around him tightened to grab his attention. "We're not going to let you die! Do you hear me? I'm not going to let you die."

The doctor took his ankle and pulled it down, her features hardened and her grip firm. His leg twitched and jerked with the need to kick but he held back for fear of hurting her.

"But I'm in danger, Mr. Stark," he cried, breath catching in his throat as his other leg was anchored down as well. 

"I know, kid. I do." His voice sounded strained and his hands patted Peter's sides as though it was more of a hug of affection than a means to prevent his escape. "But you have to trust me. Do you trust me?"

The pulse of Peter's heartbeat in his ears almost drowned out his mentor's words. His whole body buzzed, all the baby hairs on his arms standing upright like the moment before a lightning strike. He was still for a moment and then jerked in another irrational and pitiful attempt to get away, but Tony's arms just tightened again. 

"I know you're in danger," Tony continued steadily. "But I _promise_ you I'm going to protect you. Ironman is giving you his word, Pete. Do you trust me?"

Of course he did. Of course he trusted Tony. 

The doctor took hold of one of his wrists in a gentle but solid grip and he had to fight every instinct within him not to wrench away when she looped a strap around it and secured it tight to the bed. Tony waited a few seconds and then slowly and carefully unwrapped himself from around Peter. He kept ahold of his other wrist and shoulder and forced him down flat on the bed. 

Peter put all his energy into not lashing out, desperate to follow what Tony wanted him to do, and felt the water that had been flowing down his cheeks change their course to slide down his temples again. His instincts had never been wrong when they were this sharp and powerful, but... It was Tony. It was Mr. Stark. If there was anyone in the world he could put his belief in, could trust to keep him safe, it was him. 

Tony himself tied Peter's other hand down. Peter watched his face as he did it, trying to focus on anything other than his racing heartbeat and screaming instincts. Though perhaps the attention made Tony uncomfortable, because his fingers shook as they worked, and his eyes jittered like he was trying to finish his task without actually looking at it. His gaze met Peter's once, for a split second, before darting away again, nostrils flaring and jaw clenching.

"He broke the IV needle off in his arm," Helen said in a low voice, appearing briefly by Tony's side to bring another strap over the top of Peter's chest and pull it tight.

"You don't need that," Tony said sharply, hand lingering on Peter's forearm. "These are bad enough."

"If he can sit up then he can bend his arms and not only aggravate the broken needle in this arm but break off or rip out the new one I'm going to have to put in his other arm. We don't have time for any of this, Tony. _He_ doesn't have the time."

There was a small part of Peter that knew he should be alarmed at the broken needle talk. But that part was dampened, muffled. The panic was beginning to recede but so was his control over his thoughts. There was a dense fog clinging to the corners of his mind and weighing it down. 

"That shouldn't have been possible, Helen," Tony said. He crossed his arms and shifted restlessly on his feet, like he was struggling to stop himself from bolting from the room. "I shouldn't be able to hold him down like that. _Those_ things shouldn't be working." He gestured to the straps and then quickly turned away.

"They're the strongest ones we have in this section of the medical wing," she replied, quickly reattaching the wires to Peter's chest. He winced at the pinch in his arm when she inserted an IV into his other arm. 

"Doesn't matter. He should be able to break out of them."

 _He's right, I should,_ Peter thought slowly. Maybe they were testing him. He wriggled and pulled on his arms. Maybe the water coating him would help him slip out. There was certainly enough of it.

Tony watched him, face lined with worry, and his eyes were lit with such open distress that Peter decided it would be best for him to hold still. 

"Why does he keep trying to run away?" Tony murmured as though to himself. 

"His body knows it's in danger, Tony." Helen answered almost just as quietly. Peter looked for her in the room, but couldn't find her. He couldn't help but start shifting uncomfortably again, the boiling heat in his chest and limbs making themselves painfully known again now that his drive to escape had somewhat quieted. "Even if he himself doesn't understand it, his instincts are correct. He knows he's in danger and it's a reflex to want to get away from whatever is threatening him. The problem is that the threat is internal. It's something he can't escape from."

The words washed meaninglessly over Peter and he closed his eyes as fatigue began to sift down through his muscles like sand through a grate.

"He kept saying he didn't know where to go."

"Exactly. The source of the danger would just follow him."

A hand slid over his forehead, calloused and rough but blessedly cool, and he released a small groan. 

"I'm going to run this blood sample through the lab. I have a few thoughts as to what's causing this, but I won't know for sure until -..."

She kept talking but Peter's ability to follow her words was lost when he felt his fingers begin to shake. The bubbling lava flow in his chest surged, searing the inside of his skin, as the trembling traveled up his arms. 

Another earthquake. He tried to tense his muscles to keep still but they wouldn't cooperate, and it was all he could do to keep his eyes squeezed shut as the shaking traveled through his entire body. 

He heard Tony's voice and the hand on his forehead moved to the side of his face. A thumb brushed over the water that continued to spill from his eyes and another hand slid into his own. He squeezed it back as much as he could before the darkness behind his eyes expanded to take over his thoughts as well, dulling his senses and dragging his mind ever downward until awareness fled him altogether. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been told/found out (weeks after posting this, uh oh) that the needle stuff is inaccurate! The needle is only used to insert the IV, which I believe is a small plastic tube. Made a whole lot of sense as soon as I found out and I’ve felt ridiculous ever since. 😅 Pls excuse the huge inaccuracy, friends, and thank you to those who pointed it out!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Feedback is always welcome and encouraged - It waters the plant of my soul. I'll update as soon as I can!
> 
> Much love to you! (yes, you) <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more tag added, to be safe!
> 
> Huge thanks to Blondsak, who helped me out with some really great suggestions when I was stuck! The second half of this chapter is a heck of a lot better than it would have been otherwise!

Tony stood with his arms crossed, staring out the window into the night and trying to fool himself into thinking there was something worth looking at in the darkness. Snow fell not so much in flakes as in large wet clumps, barely illuminated in the weak, sterile light that escaped the window. There was nothing beyond them but pitch blackness, but still he stared. 

The heart monitor beeped behind him, quietly and steadily enough that he could almost imagine the kid it was monitoring was merely resting. The heavy, rattling breaths that accompanied it, however, kept him unwillingly tethered to reality. 

May Parker had called him not long ago. She was snowed in where she was and asked that he keep Peter for the night. Once he had worked past the guilt of not having thought to contact her sooner he agreed, though he'd debated over how much to tell her - she deserved to know what was happening but to tell her the full extent of how bad off her nephew was was borderline cruel. She was stuck where she was and could do nothing but worry. Or worse, it might tempt her to try and brave the hazardous roads to get to the compound. 

He went with a partial truth - that Peter had a pretty nasty fever going and some other flu-like symptoms. Even with that partial truth she spoke as though she was on the verge of walking out into the blizzard, but he assured her that he had his best doctor looking at Peter now and that he was in good hands. It was hard to inject any humor into his words but he did his best in the hopes of putting her mind at ease. 

After promising to have Peter call her in the morning, he hung up and was left looking at the young man as he actually was: unconscious, sweat-soaked, flushed pink, and tied down to the table. Nausea threatened to crawl up Tony's throat and he turned away, closing his eyes and moving to the window.

He had never seen Peter so scared before, or so weak. The weakness was a blessing in disguise - as uncomfortable as it was to see, Tony couldn't even fathom how much worse off they would be if Peter was still at full strength. Having to hold him down and force him to stay somewhere he didn't feel safe created a jarring split in Tony's core. His job was to protect Peter. To train him and provide an example for him to follow and hopefully surpass someday. He wanted to be a safe place for Peter, a safe person. Not a person who tied him down to an examination table. 

His hands tingled and he wiped his palms roughly on his pants to try and dispel the lingering sensation of pulling the strap tight over Peter's wrist. A voice in the back of his head reminded him that what he did _was_ for Peter's safety. But another, more accusatory voice pointed out that when Tony asked if Peter trusted him, he hadn't gotten an answer. Then it reminded him of the look in Peter's eyes as he watched Tony buckle his hand down. 

The beeping of the heart monitor began to speed up behind him and he turned to see Peter blinking at the ceiling; the first time he'd woken up since Helen left for the lab. He tried to roll over and the beeping continued to increase when he discovered that he couldn't. 

"Hey," Tony said, moving quickly to his side. He took one of the soft paper towels at the bedside and wiped it carefully over Peter's face and under his nose as best he could without dislodging the oxygen tube. Peter's face scrunched and he tried again to roll away. 

"Relax, kid, you're okay." Tony gave his shoulder a squeeze but Peter didn't seem to notice. He pulled at his arms and his breathing began to speed up. "Peter. Hey, look at me. You're okay." He guided the boy's face over to him. For a few seconds Peter stared straight through him, but then his eyes centered on Tony's face.

"Have t' go," he slurred. "M' gonna die."

"I'm not gonna let that happen, Pete. I promise, you're safe here."

He could see the struggle in Peter's eyes as he tried his hardest to believe him. But then his expression broke and he shook his head with a barely audible sob. "I don't feel safe." 

Tony's heart tightened and guilt flooded his chest once more. The continuous stream of tears trailing from Peter's eyes didn't help. "I know, kiddo. We’re figuring it out. We think you were exposed to something last night, some kind of nerve agent. Helen's working on it right now."

Peter flexed his fingers quietly. 

"Do you trust me?" Tony knew he was being paranoid, but he couldn't help that small vulnerable part of him from holding its breath in anticipation.

Peter's eyebrows immediately pulled together. "'f course I trust you, Mr. Stark."

Some of the tension in Tony's shoulders relaxed and before he could think about what he was doing, he put a hand up to Peter's forehead and ran his fingers back into his hair. Peter's face softened somewhat and Tony gave him as reassuring a smile as he could manage.

"I'll make sure you're okay, Pete. We're going to fix this."

_"Tony."_ Helen's voice startled him, projected from the ceiling. _"How much would Peter's suit filter an airborne agent?"_

"Agent..." Peter murmured to himself, then looked away. "James Bond."

Tony scratched his fingers lightly against the boy's too-warm scalp and drew in a long breath as he considered her question. "It filters toxins somewhat but not completely. Enough air has to get through for him to breathe."

_"My first hunch is organophosphates. The symptoms match... confusion, agitation, narrow pupils, muscle spasms, blurred vision, excessive secretions - sweat, tears, mucus, runny nose. But I can't imagine him breathing in enough of it in gas form for this strong of a reaction. Skin to liquid contact would do it, but I assume he was in his suit the whole time."_

"Why organophosphates, why not some other nerve agent?"

_"It's an insecticide, Tony."_

His eyes flew back down to Peter, to the straps that he should be able to rip right through. 

_"Usually you only see organophosphate poisoning out in rural farm areas, but hundreds of thousands of people die from it every year and it’s not_ all _in rural areas. And it's not all accidental."_

"Yeah," Tony acknowledged with a frown, fingers still scratching gently at Peter's head. He had been in the weapons business long enough to be familiar with most instances of biological warfare. He knew the German military had tested and experimented with organophosphates as a neurotoxin in World War II. He knew that it was still often used as a means of suicide. And he knew that it was occasionally used in acts of terrorism. 

_"But like I said, I don't know that he could have inhaled enough to cause this."_

"Leg," Peter said suddenly, eyes expressive as he looked from Tony down to his leg. "Um. It spilled."

_"Check it,"_ Helen immediately ordered. _"It could be the watery substance he said was on the ground as well. If it got into contact with his skin..."_

Tony pushed up the cuff of Peter's sweatpants on his left leg, where Peter was wiggling his fingers and staring. On the outside of his leg just above the knee was a white bandage. He peeled the haphazardly applied medical tape off enough to see a small slice in his skin.

"Suit was um... got cut open there." Peter said, still staring down at it. "From mugging guy. Before."

"He's got a cut in his leg," Tony said, taking the bandage off all the way. It was already well on its way to being healed.

_"Okay, that's good,"_ Helen replied simply.

"How is that good?" Tony shot a glare at the ceiling.

_"It's good because that means it's almost definitely organophosphates and we keep atropine in the other lab here. I'll be there soon."_

A sharp cough made Peter's body jerk and then he continued to hack, turning his head to the side and struggling to sit up or roll over. Tony's hands hovered over him, instinctively wanting to help Peter up to relieve the coughing, but he held back. Helen had made it clear that if Peter moved his arm too much the piece of needle that had broken off could rupture a vein or, infinitely worse, enter the bloodstream and travel to his heart. 

Not knowing what else to do, he held a hand against the back of Peter's sweaty neck as he continued to cough. Thankfully it didn't last more than another half a minute or so before subsiding, and by then Helen had returned. Tony moved aside for her as she changed out the IV bag with some other clear fluid.

"Atropine," she explained without prompting, pushing some loose strands of hair off her forehead with the back of her arm and readying another needle for a shot. "Most patients with organophosphate poisoning this severe require intubation to keep their airway clear, but his breathing isn't completely blocked yet so I'm hoping this concentrated dose will jumpstart the detoxification process.

"Did you shower when you got home last night, Peter?" She slid the needle into his upper arm as she spoke. 

Peter looked offended, not even flinching at the shot. "'f course." 

"And you cleaned out that cut?" She dropped the used needle into a covered bin.

"Mm hm."

She went on to ask him a few more questions and he seemed to follow along enough to give her mostly coherent answers. Tony listened in a bit of a daze, mind still attempting to catch up. 

"He's going to be okay?" 

Helen paused her questioning to turn and look at him, patient despite his interruption. "We'll need to see how well and how fast his body responds to the atropine, but as long as it responds well it'll just be a matter of adjusting the dosage. He might need to stay here for a day or so to stay on the IV drip."

Tony met Peter's feverish eyes.

"I hate nature," the young man told him solemnly, sweat shining on his face in the overhead lights. "Don't be scared though, she's a specialist."

Tony raised his eyebrows and turned back to Helen. "So he's going to be okay?"

She chuckled in response and nodded. "Yes, he's going to be okay. Now back up, I need to get that needle out of his arm."

He let out a long breath and scrubbed his hands over his face before plopping into a soft chair nearby. The window behind him radiated cold against his back but he barely noticed as he watched Helen numb Peter’s arm and talk quietly and soothingly to him. 

Within a few minutes she had removed the broken piece of needle and was bandaging up the small incision in the crook of his elbow. 

“You should start feeling better soon, Peter,” she assured. When Peter didn’t respond and seemed to drift into his own world, she turned instead to Tony. “Within an hour or two we should see the sweating and tears and runny nose start to decrease, and his cough will most likely go away even before that. The fever might take a little longer to get rid of, but it will drop out of the dangerous range soon enough.”

She gave a deep sigh then, and her shoulders sagged ever so slightly. For a moment they simply stared at each other in mutual relief, and when she smiled he couldn’t help but mirror it. 

“Helen…” he started, shaking his head slowly as he tried to muster up the right words to tell her just how thankful he was for what she had done. 

She held up a hand. “You can thank me later. I need to go see that we have enough stock of atropine and maybe figure out a muscle relaxant to ease those tremors sooner.” She put a hand on his shoulder as she passed him and he gave it a grateful pat.

The door swooshed shut behind her and Tony was left once again with the beeping of the heart monitor and Peter’s slow, ragged breaths. He stood and drew close to Peter’s bedside again, sitting carefully on the edge.

“Catch any of that, Pete?” He asked, patting the back of his limp hand.

Peter rolled his head over to look at him. His eyes were half closed, hazy and unfocused. “She’s gonna help with th’ earthquakes?”

Tony wasn’t entirely sure what that meant but he nodded nonetheless. “She’s helping with all of it. It’s only up from here for you, kid.”

Peter gave a slight smile, eyes opening less and less with each blink. “Told you I can’t get sick.” 

“Yeah,” Tony whispered, the lightness in his expression fading as Peter’s eyes slid closed and his face slowly smoothed out in sleep. “You did.”

And Tony should have listened. He should have known better, should have at least gotten Peter checked out before assuming it was something as simple as a common virus when the boy had told him from the beginning that it hadn’t happened once since the bite. In their line of work, it can always be something worse. They should never take chances, and he should have known that. 

His carelessness had almost gotten Peter killed. He drew in a sharp breath at the realization and ran the back of his hand over the young man’s temple, wiping the tears from his fever-pink skin. They were replaced within seconds, so he just sat back and gripped Peter’s hand. He glanced toward the dark window, looking for falling snowflakes but only finding his and Peter’s reflections.

Despite his impulsivity and inexperience that caused Tony to worry so often, he had always equated Peter with youthful vitality and strength. Not invulnerability by any means, not even close... but there wasn’t much that that kid couldn’t bounce back from with a chipper smile and a desire to try it again. To see him so weak, so delirious and confused and _scared_ , shook that image down into something Tony didn’t like. Something vulnerable. Something that he could lose a lot more easily than he’d thus far let himself believe. 

Peter’s altered DNA was not entirely a blessing. It gave him many advantages but with those advantages came susceptibility in areas a normal person wouldn’t need to deal with. Peter’s sixth sense saved him from danger and death more often than not but tonight it had done nothing but harm him, forcing him into a spiraling panic and requiring him to be restrained. 

His hardy constitution and healing ability were surely what staved off the insecticide’s effects for so long, but when they could no longer keep up it was undoubtedly because of his spider DNA that the symptoms hit him so hard and so fast. A normal human would have seen a slower onset and been able to get help much sooner. 

Tony let out a puff of air and dropped his head. His desire to protect Peter had already been stronger than he thought reasonable for someone he’d only met the previous year, but this experience dug that instinct in deep. It was a frightening thing, the absolute _need_ to keep someone safe. It meant that that person was a part of him. A part that could be lost.

He lifted his head again when Peter released a long sigh in his sleep. Tony squeezed the boy’s hand and smiled to himself. 

As much as he tried to minimize the amount of fear he lived with on a daily basis… Peter was worth it.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Peter woke up on and off a couple times over the next several hours, feeling slightly more lucid each time.The first time he woke up the room was silent and he didn’t even open his eyes before sliding back under. 

The second time, he heard quiet voices nearby. 

“...should have brought him here sooner.” Tony’s voice, drained and almost lazy. Peter could imagine him slouched in his chair. “Should’ve called you sooner, I don’t know.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Tony. This type of poisoning is so often mistaken for the flu, the symptoms are so similar.”

“I thought it was the flu! You know kids, sneezing on each other, sharing crayons, licking walls...”

Helen laughed softly and Peter heard a rustle of fabric as she rearranged herself. “The point is, you caught on in time. I think if he had been with anyone else but you tonight he might not have made it.”

Peter shifted around a bit. He didn’t feel as hot as he had before but his whole body ached and he longed to change positions. His arms were still held down but he found that his legs were free so he drew them up close to him before drifting off again to the sound of Tony calling his name. 

The third time he woke up, it was with a clear head. He opened his eyes not to the fluorescent lights overhead but to the natural light of day emanating from the nearby window. The sky was still overcast but the snow storm had passed, leaving a thick blanket of white over the land in its wake. 

He was blessedly dry, covered in a light blanket and wearing a loose hospital gown along with his sweatpants. He was free of restraints and sat up immediately upon that discovery, stretching as much as the IV (now in the back of his hand) would allow. 

The door opened and Tony walked in, freezing with a paper coffee cup halfway to his lips when he saw Peter sitting up.

“Hey there, Drippy,” he said with a good-natured smirk.

“Hi,” Peter responded slowly, then glanced down at himself. There were no longer any wires attached to him or even an oxygen tube under his nose. “Am I okay?”

Tony took a sip of his coffee and stood at Peter’s bedside. “Do you feel okay?”

He took a moment to assess himself. He was still somewhat achey. Very tired. But otherwise… “I feel okay.”

“Glad to hear it.” Tony shifted slightly on his feet, gaze darting to the window before returning to him. “You gave us a real scare last night, kid. How much do you remember?”

Peter looked down at his lap and picked at a loose thread at the edge of the blanket as embarrassing memories surfaced in his mind. “Kinda feels like a weird dream, but I think I remember most of it.” He remembered the frustration of trying to get helpful information out when the words just no longer existed in his brain. He remembered the overwhelming panic that pressed in on him from all sides, the boiling heat, the struggle between trusting Tony and trusting his own instincts. 

“I’m sorry for -” he began.

“-don’t even start apol-”

“-for trying to run away and for fighting you the whole time.”

Tony shook his head while Peter spoke, holding up a hand to try and quiet him, but Peter’s embarrassment and guilt needed to be expressed.

“I just made it worse for you and Dr. Cho. I’m sorry I wasn’t helpful. I’m sorry I couldn’t remember everything that happened, I really tried, but I couldn’t -”

“Okay, stop. Stop,” Tony finally cut in. He settled on the edge of the bed, pulling up one leg to lean his elbow on. He stared at Peter for a few seconds before letting out a short huff and tilting his head to the side. “I’m trying to find something trivial for you to be sorry about for the sake of humor and I can’t even do that. How about this, feel sorry for choosing a documentary with a narrator so boring that I fell asleep.”

Peter gave a quiet laugh that slowly faded into silence. “So it was bug spray, huh?”

He expected to receive some sort of joke or at least gentle teasing, but instead Tony rested his coffee cup on the bedside table and took out his phone. “It was a little bigger than that, kiddo.” He swiped at the screen a few times before handing the phone to Peter.

Peter’s eyes immediately bugged out when he saw a newspaper blog with the headline:

_“Spider-Man Busts Terrorist Cell Hours Before Deadly Attack”_

His mouth fell open at the photos of the crime scene, not taped off as he was used to seeing but closed off with large sheets of plastic covering the doors to the building and officials dressed in full hazmat gear entering and exiting. 

“The stuff they were using could have killed a lot of people,” Tony said, studying Peter’s face as he read the article. “And made even _more_ people really sick. It wouldn’t have been easy to contain once it was released.”

“Whoa.”

“What I want to know, though, is why a chemistry student like yourself just wandered home without another thought after encountering something like that.”

Peter lowered the phone to his lap, mouth still hanging open. “I dunno, I- I thought it was a meth lab. Or something. You know, Breaking Bad. I didn’t know people did this, not here in the city at least.”

Tony took the phone back and slipped it into his pocket. “I’ve called in some people who are going to detoxify your whole apartment just to be safe. Especially the suit you were wearing. We’re lucky your aunt got snowed in wherever she was, or she might have been breathing in fumes all night.”

Peter ran both hands through his hair, the mere thought of May getting sick or possibly dying as a result of his ignorance making his mind blank in horror. 

“ _But_ she didn’t,” Tony quickly continued upon seeing his expression. “So she is going to be just fine. As are you.” He gave Peter’s knee a pat to draw his attention. “Promise me something though, okay?”

Peter nodded automatically. “Okay.”

“Promise me you’ll tell me if you come across anything like this in the future. Even if it looks like a run of the mill drug den, just shoot me a text. ‘Hey Mr. Stark, these bad guys have drugs I don’t recognize.’ Okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Peter said, still nodding. 

Tony was silent for a few more seconds, then he put his hand on top of Peter’s and stared at where their hands were joined. “I’m sorry I didn’t get you here sooner, kid. That’s on me.”

Peter turned his hand palm up under Tony’s and squeezed a little. The older man didn’t look up but a small smile pulled at his lips. “It’s okay,” Peter said. “This stuff is often mistaken for the flu. The symptoms are really similar and I’ve been licking walls like crazy this week.”

That pulled a snort out of his mentor. “So you heard that, huh?”

“Yeah. But um. Thank you. For saving me. I’m sure I would have been a toxic puddle by now otherwise.”

Tony leaned forward and pulled Peter into a gentle hug with a hand on the back of his neck. Peter wasn’t sure if he was going for a full hug or not but he wrapped both arms around the older man anyway. 

“Always, Pete. I don’t want you going anywhere anytime soon.”

Peter smiled at the warmth and fondness in his mentor’s voice and lay his head on Tony’s shoulder. He closed his eyes, relaxing into the embrace and resting his mind and heart in the knowledge that the strongest and best man he knew was protecting him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope it was enjoyable! <3

**Author's Note:**

> We'll be hearing from Peter's pov in the next part, which honestly has been so fun to write. Does anyone have any guesses as to what's actually happening? 
> 
> Regardless, thank you for reading, I hope it's enjoyable so far! <3


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